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Rethinking Violent Videogame Content

Conceptual Advances and Directions for Future Research

Kenneth A. Lachlan

Since the early 2000s, parents, academics, and policymakers have expressed consternation over the nature of violent videogames, voicing concerns regarding the potential for negative effects on both youth and adult game players. Empirical research exploring the content of videogames has suggested that videogames may be rife with unsavory content. These included extensive graphic violence (Smith, Lachlan, & Tamborini, 2003), violence that is committed by primarily White male characters (Lachlan, Smith, & Tamborini, 2005), repeated use of gun violence (Smith et al., 2004), sexualized portrayals of female characters (Beasley & Standley, 2002), and verbal aggression and substance abuse (Haninger & Thompson, 2004). The findings concerning violent content have stirred perhaps the most public debate, leading critics to suggest a relationship between playing violent videogames and both short-and long-term aggressive behavior (Elmer-Dewitt, 1993). US news media have been quick to draw linkages between videogame play (as other controversial media) and high-profile school shootings at Columbine High School and Westside Middle School (Gegax, Adler, & Pedersen, 1998). A substantial corpus of research has established a link between playing violent gameplay and aggressive behavior (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Ballard & Lineberger, 1999; Sherry, 2001). At the same time, a smaller number of studies have sought to quantify violent game content by examining the frequency of violent interactions, the nature of violence, and the contexts surrounding this violence.

Methodological techniques used to explore behavioral responses to videogame exposure are fairly well established. Short-term responses in terms of aggressive attitudes and behaviors have been evaluated using experimental procedures that have been used confidently for decades by social sciences. Correlational studies establishing noncausal linkages have used well-established sampling and survey techniques, as have studies exploring the motivations and gratifications derived from videogame use. Meta-analytic studies concerning the effects of videogames, and violent games in particular, have also relied on tried and true methods of evaluating effects across programs of research.

However, we cannot logically have the same degree of confidence in the methodological approaches taken in the videogame content literature. These studies have relied on content-analytic techniques that were developed first for print media, and then adapted to linear electronic media (e.g., film and television). Among other methodological shortcomings, these studies fail to consider that interactive media may present unique implications for sampling, unitizing, and content generation (Schmierbach, 2009) and that simply reapplying these techniques to videogames and other interactive content may lead to an inaccurate depiction of the ways in which game content may fluctuate.

Also overlooked in the robotic reapplication of these techniques is the role that the game player herself will likely play in the generation of interactive content. There is reason to believe that individual personality characteristics, and past gameplay (either general or with the game in question), may impact the frequency, nature, and context of violent game content. The gameplay experience will also likely vary based on the experience of presence, or “a psychological state or subjective perception in which even though part or all of an individual's current experience is generated by and/or filtered through human-made technology, part or all of the individual's perception fails to accurately acknowledge the role of the technology in the experience” (Lombard, 2000, cited in Bracken, 2006, p. 725). This chapter reviews past research on the effects of violent videogames. It goes on to discuss past videogame content analyses, as well as the linkages between personality, game experience, and presence and behavior in interactive environments. It then presents the one standing study that has made a small attempt to explore these relationships, and concludes with discussion of future directions for evaluating violent game content.

Research on Videogames and Violence

Previous Research on the Effects of Videogame Violence

Research on the uses and gratifications of videogames reveals that children, adolescents, and adults alike spend a substantial amount of time playing videogames. Recent research suggests an upward trend over the last 10 years in the amount of time children ages 8 through 18 spend playing videogames, from 26 minutes per day in 1999 to 86 minutes in 2009 (Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010). The knowledge that home videogames are both prevalent and feature graphic violence has led to a long tradition of videogame effects research, dating back to the early 1980s (Dominick, 1984). Much of the early research on the effects of videogame violence was correlational in nature. For example, Wiegman and Van Shie (1998) found a relationship between a preference for violent games and reports of violent behavior; other studies have offered similar findings with kids (Dominick, 1984; Lin & Lepper, 1987) and adults (Anderson & Dill, 2000).

Numerous laboratory studies have also attempted to establish a causal link between gameplay and aggressive responses when provoked. Anderson and Ford (1986), Ballard and Lineberger (1999), Anderson and Dill (2000), and a number of other experimental studies suggest a causal relationship between violent videogame play and immediate subsequent aggression, while Shutte, Malouf, Post-Gordon, and Rodasta (1987) offered that children who played violent games were likely to react violently when provoked after gameplay.

Previous Content Analyses

Concern over the potential link between violent videogame content and aggressive behavior has more recently led to a number of content-analytic studies attempting to quantify the frequency of videogame violence. These studies have also attempted to identify problematic contexts for violence, based on past research in television and film indicating specific context outcomes related to aggressive attitudes, behaviors, and desensitization.

Braun and Giroux (1989) performed an evaluation of 21 arcade games in their efforts to quantify the rate at which the destruction of characters typically takes place. They posited that about three-quarters of their sample featured the death or destruction of others, and that this content was more commonly found in games with themes concerning war or crime. Dietz (1998) reported similar findings in an ad hoc evaluation of 33 games for the Nintendo and Sega Genesis home gaming systems.

Smith, Lachlan, and Tamborini (2003) attempted to apply the coding and analysis plan of the National Television Violence Study to videogames, with particular concern for the ways in which frequency and context of violence might vary across game rating. They found that videogames rated for mature audiences were more likely to contain repeated violence, gun violence, and bloodshed and gore. A series of follow-up studies using these data posited that videogames may be more likely than television to present gun violence that is unrealistic, justified, and repetitive (Smith et al., 2004), and that violent perpetrators in videogames are often White male characters, not dissimilar in appearance to those toward whom violent games are marketed and who may thus see the perpetrators as attractive behavioral models (Lachlan et al., 2005). Haninger and Thompson (2004) examined an hour's worth of taped content from 81 popular games rated “T” for teen, in an attempt to identify problematic content in games rated for younger audiences and examine content taking place in different time frames during the game. They argue that about 90% of the games rated for teens necessitated the use of violence, while 69% required game players to kill other characters.

While these studies provide important data in the ongoing social dialogue about violent games, the methodological approaches taken in these studies have been based on past research on linear media such as print, television, and film, and have failed to consider the possibility that videogame content may vary from player to player.

Conceptual Shortcomings

To date, videogame scholars have relied heavily upon content-analytic techniques that were never designed for interactive media (see Schmierbach 2009 for a comprehensive review). In particular, the content analysis research on videogames has been criticized for questionable sampling procedures, coding conventions, levels of data analysis, unitizing, and variable selection. While these are valid concerns, less clearly articulated are conceptual issues related to interactivity and to variation in content across multiple game players.

This chapter will limit discussion of these conceptual limitations to the evaluation of violent content in videogames. However, further exploration of the conceptual issues associated with quantifying videogame content across many contexts is encouraged, and it is hoped that this chapter will at least provide a stepping stone in initiating that conversation.

Incorporating Conceptual Issues into Videogame Content Research

The Role of Player Personality

It is likely important to consider the personality characteristics of individual game players and their subsequent effect on game content. A substantial amount of research on the effects of television and film violence has identified particular personality characteristics as covariates in aggressive responses, the formation of aggressive attitudes, and the acceptance of observed violence. In particular, trait aggression and psychoticism have been identified as covariates that may positively predict aggressive responses to violent media; those who may exhibit stronger tendencies along these factors may be more subject to the influence of violent media. Further, past research has indicated that those higher in trait empathy may be less likely to respond aggressively after exposure to film or television violence. In terms of the moral approval of observed aggression, past research has indicated that personality traits such as vigilantism and a desire for social justice may impact the extent to which audience members morally approve of observed aggression.

Personality characteristics have also been demonstrated to be important considerations when considering the appeal of videogames, and the extent to which they predict game selection and enjoyment. Hartmann and Klimmt (2006), for example, offer that a number of personality characteristics related to action tendencies, competitive tendencies, achievement tendencies, aggression, and frustration may play a role in the games that individuals are inclined to select. With regard to aggression, they offer that those with more aggressive personality characteristics and tendencies may be drawn to aggressive content, in a manner similar to past research on selective exposure to linear media.

What makes videogames different from television and other linear media, however, is the ability to make decisions within the context of gameplay and alter the content of the mediated experience through these decisions. Personality tendencies, including trait hostility and trait aggressiveness, are at least partially conceptualized in relationship to certain action tendencies. In terms of aggression, this may include the likelihood that one will choose to engage in violent or hostile behaviors with or without provocation and the tendency of the individual to use aggressive tactics to achieve behavioral goals.

When we narrow the focus of this line of reasoning, there appears to be a specific relationship between aggressive personality characteristics and game content. The very same personality attributes that draw game players to particular titles, and that may moderate their responses to aggressive game content, may also affect decision-making within the context of gameplay. It is therefore the case that these user personality attributes will alter the content of the game experience itself, since both short-term responses and long-term plot turns will be related to whether or not the player decides to use a game character to enact violence, how to do so, what extent to do so, and to whom.

Prior Experience

It is also the case that past experience with videogames, and perhaps with a specific game title, will affect the way in which the content within that game title will unfold for the experienced or inexperienced user. Videogames are, of course, games. Part of the appeal of any game revolves around the presentation of challenges that may be easy to understand, but difficult to master. With regard to videogames, they present the game player with challenges that vary over time, as through experience the game player will learn to overcome certain obstacles and tackle new ones (Hartmann & Klimmt, 2006). Thus, it can be expected that through experience with a particular game, the decision-making opportunities for the use or non-use of aggression and the means in which it is used will vary as a function of experience with the game.

Further, the level of experienced immersion and interactivity discussed below is likely to vary based on game experience. Lee, Park, and Jin (2006) have offered that as game players become more familiar with an interactive environment, they are more likely to become comfortable with navigating and interacting with the environment, producing cleaner sensations of presence. This makes sense logically. If you think about the first time you may have played a particular game, you may have had difficulty navigating the environment, using the controls, interacting with other characters, and so on. Through repeated gameplay, you probably became more comfortable with these factors.

It may also be the case that experience with games in general may influence the content experience. While there is a great deal of variability from game to game in terms of the plot, content, and decision structures, there are some conventions that are consistent across games. Many first-person shooter games, for example, are built using one of a handful of graphics engines. Haptic devices, such as joysticks and remotes, tend to be similar across games and game systems. A relative level of familiarity with these more common game elements may also play a role in the ability to experience certain challenges and immersion, and in turn with decision processes and content outcomes.

Presence

Prior investigations of videogame content have failed to consider the role of presence in the production of videogame content, despite the fact that several studies (Howe & Sharkey, 1998; Tamborini, 2000; Witmer & Singer, 1998) have posited that the experience of presence will directly impact behaviors within interactive environments. Steuer (1992) and others have defined presence as the extent to which we perceive that we are actually present in a mediated environment, as opposed to feeling present in our natural physical environment. The experience of presence within a mediated environment is likely to range along a continuum from relatively high to relatively low, depending on some combination of one's susceptibility to the experience of presence as a trait characteristic, as well as attributes of the interactive environment that may interact with these tendencies to produce a highly immersive experience.

Witmer and Singer (1998) have extended this definition to specify involvement and immersion as psychological states that underscore the feeling that one has left their physical environment and become immersed in a mediated one. Tamborini (2000) argues that the vivid audio and visual features and interactive nature of videogames and other modern interactive media are likely to evoke these feelings of involvement and immersion. Since contemporary videogames feature sophisticated haptic controls, lifelike graphics, and advanced artificial intelligence in terms of the characters found within games, they are likely to produce strong feelings of immersion and interactivity, even among those not especially predisposed to these experiences. It is not difficult to see how these levels of immersion within the mediated environment, and the extent to which they simulate real-life actions, may impact the propensity toward using violence if the game player in question is already predisposed toward aggressive tendencies.

This process is further complicated by the notion that not only are videogames inherently high in presence compared to other media, but that this increased degree of presence may be a critical component of the appeal of videogames. Tamborini and Skalski (2006) have argued that videogames provide powerful mental models of both the self and others, and that these mental models provide a certain sense of connectedness to others that are not offered in other more linear media. In this way, some presence features such as social presence (see Biocca, Harms, & Burgoon, 2003) are not only psychological experiences that may shift the decision-making processes and subsequent content, but are part of the very appeal of the game itself. As such, evaluating the extent to which the game player experiences these varying forms of presence and/or their trait susceptibility to these experiences may allow us to predict the nature of the content that an individual will produce in varying circumstances.

Much like the argument above concerning aggressive personality characteristics, it is easy to see how one of the aspects of videogame play that is found appealing by videogame players may also impact the nature of the content that is produced. If the experience of presence is inherently part of the appeal of videogames, and the experience of presence is also related to decision-making processes concerning aggression and subsequent aggressive content, then the very motive for playing in the first place may be related to the content outcomes that can be expected within a given interactive environment.

In summation, there is reason to believe that videogame content is a far more complex phenomenon than has been articulated in past content-analytic research in the field. It is not likely to be a function of the game alone, but is more likely a combination of user attributes, such as personality and past experience, and the extent to which the interactive game environment replicates real-life interactions, providing the game player with a sense of presence. The susceptibility of the game player to become immersed in the interactive environment then becomes an equally critical consideration, alongside personality characteristics and past gameplay experience. In order to fully evaluate the potentially risky violent content in popular videogames, one must simultaneously consider not only the game itself, but characteristics of those inclined to playing the game.

Further, it may be the case that these relationships are game dependent. While most content-analytic studies have attempted to present “snapshot” views of the universe of videogames, their attempt at making sweeping statements about the nature of content across all games might be misguided. Intuitively, it is likely the individual subtleties related to gameplay within individual games beget relationships between these variables that will change dramatically across different games. To this point, very little empirical research has attempted to explore the ways in which game player characteristics might be related to potentially risky content, and the ways in which these relationships may shift from game to game.

Lone Study

Despite the variability in game content that one could expect given these user characteristics, a single study conducted by myself and Erin Maloney (2008) has attempted to draw linkages between user attributes and quantified game. We decided to take a first stab at exploring the relationship between user attributes and game content, by looking at a number of game participants playing a small number of games. Using conventions drawn from experimental research, we recruited 160 research participants and randomly assigned them to play one of four violent videogames. Using the same coding scheme and analysis techniques as Smith, Lachlan, and Tamborini (2003), we routed the audio and video signal through a VCR, recorded the content, and then subjected the content to the analytic procedures. This allowed us to examine content characteristics across all four games, and to break down the pattern of content within each game. It also allowed us to use inferential statistical techniques to draw associations between user attributes and patterns of content, both within each game and across all games in the study.

The results of our study, albeit one with a small sample and a limited number of games, provide evidence of tremendous variation in game content across the game experiences of individuals playing exactly the same game at the same stage (the beginning of the game). Without going into detail beyond the scope of this chapter, the rate of violent exchanges, the frequency with which certain context features were present, and the nature of the violence in question varied greatly both within and across games.

For example, 40 participants played the game SoCom: Navy Seals for a period of 20 minutes from the beginning of the game. Across those 40 participants, the mean number of violent interactions was 43.14, with a standard deviation of about 20. In other words, in the distribution of the number of acts of violence, the middle 64% of them fell approximately between 23 and 63. Characteristics of these violent exchanges contained a great deal of variation too. The number of acts of violence featuring firearms averaged about 40 with a standard deviation of about 20. The number of acts depicting extreme harm (severed body parts or visible entrails) averaged about 20 with a standard deviation of about 9. The list goes on and on, but the bottom line is that with this and three other games, there was tremendous variability in both the frequency of violent interactions and the frequency of certain context characteristics associated with that violence.

We then went on to explore the relationship between individual personality characteristics, presence, and the frequency of these occurrences. Using multiple regression analysis, we linked attributes of the game players to the variability in these content characteristics across all four games. The analyses involved the simultaneous consideration of a number of game player attributes: these included demographics, perceived realism, trait aggression as measured by the Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire (physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility), the factors of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (extroversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and social desirability), measures from the Social Justice Questionnaire (empathy, vigilantism, and punitiveness), and telepresence tendency.

The analyses produced significant statistical models of three of the dependent content variables: the number of unjust acts of violence, the number of violent acts involving handheld firearms, and the number of acts in which no harm to the victim was observed. Income and hostility psychoticism positively predicted the frequency of unjustified acts of violence, while trait hostility negatively predicted the frequency of these observations. Argumentativeness and empathy positively predicted the frequency of gun violence, telepresence tendency negatively predicted gun violence. Psychoticism positively predicted the number of acts that did not portray any kind of harm.

While the initial analyses indicated that one's propensity toward experiencing presence and individual game player personality characteristics may influence game content across the entire study, we were also interested in the extent to which these relationships may be variable from game to game. Logically, it may be the case that the plotlines, gameplay, and highly specified game characteristics might impact whether or not these user attributes affect violent content. In fact, we recommended examining these relationships within the contexts of individual games, rather than attempting to generalize from a small number of games to the universe of videogames on the whole. These statistical analyses were then repeated within individual games, in order to explore the possibility that different user characteristics may predict different content across different games. Generally speaking, the results revealed the expected outcome: that the game player-level predictors of the frequency of various violent content outcomes were variable from games to game.

For example, within those subjects playing Rainbow 6, the analyses revealed only two significant models. Trait physical aggressiveness positively predicted the frequency of justified acts of aggression, while empathy negatively predicted the frequency of these interactions. Game players who were higher in their levels of both verbal aggressiveness and vigilantism were, for some reason, more likely to commit acts of violence in which the victims were not depicted in a manner exhibiting tangible physical harm.

The within-game analyses for SoCom: Navy Seals painted a much different picture in terms of the user characteristics that may affect gameplay. While these factors did not affect the frequency of any specific type of violent interaction, they did predict the total number of violent acts coded within the game over 20 minutes. Across 40 participants, psychoticism tended to negatively predict the total number of acts of aggression, while the frequency of these interactions was positively related to extroversion, social desirability, and empathy.

Two statistically significant sets of relationships were detected within Grand Theft Auto 3. The number of unjustified acts of violence observed during the gameplay session and the number of acts of violence using natural means of aggression were both related to game player characteristics. Trait hostility negatively predicted the number of unjust acts of violence observed across those playing this particular game. Within Grand Theft Auto 3, numerous player-related variables predicted the number of acts using natural means. Trait verbal aggressiveness, argumentativeness, and extroversion positively predicted the number of violent acts using natural means such as punching or kicking, while there was a negative relationship between these types of acts and the game players' levels of hostility, vigilantism, and immersive tendencies.

For the final game in the analysis, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, we found no significant relationships between user attributes and the frequency of varying types of violent content. None of the personality attributes they explored were related in any way to the content outcomes under consideration.

What to Make of This?

This leads us to the question of how to interpret these findings, and where to go from here. A fairly substantive body of research has argued for a relationship between playing violent videogames and antisocial effects on game players. In the wake of these studies, a number of content-analytic studies have attempted to evaluate the frequency and context surrounding videogame violence, and to identify specific presentations of violence that have been found problematic in other research contexts (e.g., television and film). While these studies provide valuable data concerning patterns of gameplay content, our study examining the role of player attributes has revealed findings that are inconsistent, difficult to explain, and highly variable across only a small number of games.

The findings from our study (Lachlan & Maloney, 2008) suggest the potential for quantifiable relationships between game player characteristics and game content, but more broadly they suggest to us that our understanding of videogame content might be seriously underdeveloped. In this one data set, not only is there a great deal of fluctuation in the frequency of violence and the contexts associated with these interactions, but these fluctuations are different across different games, different game players, and are on occasion systematically related to different game player attributes. Further, the findings concerning the relationship between the user and violent content are often counterintuitive, suggesting that we may need to revisit our conceptualizations of game content and the decision processes on the part of game players that are critical in the production of this content.

Variability in Game Content

Within and across multiple games, it appears as though the frequency of different types of interactions is highly variable. This variability casts serious doubts on the plausibility of past conceptualizations of interactive content, both in this context and in others. For the most part, previous content-analytic studies on videogame violence have presented a “snapshot” of the frequency, nature, and context surrounding violent interactions in a given game by analyzing a single unit of content, generated on one occasion, by one game player (typically one of the researchers or a research assistant). There may be alternate directions for conceptualizing exactly what game content is and how it should be measured. The current chapter offers that videogame scholars begin to think about content as a dependent variable, as opposed to a static content outcome that can be measured using the techniques and conventions germane to linear content analysis. In other words, it may be more useful to think of videogame content as an outcome, one that is dependent to an extent not only on the game parameters, but also on user characteristics, presence, gameplay experience, and so on.

If we are to conceptualize content units as dependent on multiple factors, then perhaps the approaches that we take to content from a methodological and data-analytic standpoint can be grounded differently. Instead of thinking of content units and analyses as comparable to linear content, it may be the case that videogame content (and, for that matter, any interactive content) bears a closer resemblance to data conventions more closely associated with behavioral research. This approach – thinking of content characteristics as dependent variables based on multiple predictors – would allow game researchers to use inferential statistics to estimate the true scores of varying content units in a universe of potential content experiences associated with any one game. Over a large number of players, the frequency and context of various content attributes could be estimated. By thinking of content outcomes in terms of means and standard deviations, game researchers could begin to assemble a more sophisticated picture of game content, and one that might be more representative and generalizable (at least within game). While this approach might be time consuming and tedious, it would allow for the evaluation of measures of central tendency along any given content outcome. This would not only allow for more sophisticated evolutions of game content within a given game, but would allow for comparisons in game content across games, systems, genres, and ratings using different inferential procedures involving mean comparisons (t-tests, ANOVA, etc.).

Variability Based on Presence

In addition to this reconceptualization of content, the findings of our study (Lachlan & Maloney, 2008) force us to reconsider other assumptions regarding game content. While the study did not measure the level of presence experienced, it did measure telepresence tendency, or the individual user's susceptibility toward experiencing presence experiences. For the most part, presence tendencies were not strongly related to the likelihood that certain types of violent content would appear. However, there were a few instances in which presence negatively predicted the frequency of some types of aggressive content.

While this may appear counterintuitive, further consideration of the role of presence in interactive violence leads to a logical thread not dissimilar to that associated with past game experience. It may be the case that those who are prone to experiencing presence may have an increased capacity to take a task-oriented approach to the use of violence. In these circumstances, violence can be used by the game player as a means of accomplishing certain tasks, while random nonsensical violence may be more closely associated with those who have not adapted well to the virtual environment. In other words, the more comfortable one is with the game, the better one adapts to and maneuvers around the environment, the more one can strategically use a small number of violent acts to efficiently accomplish a task or meet a goal. While logical, this commentary is somewhat speculative, and scholars should further consider the exploration of presence and habituation to virtual environments on the decision-making processes that lead to aggressive or violent content.

Variability Based on Past Game Experience

Notably, our 2008 study did not include past game experience – either in general or with the game in question – as a predictor of game content. This is perhaps problematic, as we could expect certain variability in the production of violent content based on familiarity with the game.

While research has not directly addressed this possibility, it is not difficult to see how familiarity with the game could affect these outcomes. What might be counter-intuitive is the ways in which it may affect content. When thought through to its logical end, it may be the case that game experience actually reduces the frequency of aggressive outcomes.

For example, let's take Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. In this game, there is an early stage in which the character played by the game player has to break into a golf course, ride a golf cart around, locate an enemy character, and kill him using a five-iron. An inexperienced player might be inclined to swing at anything that moves, while following unfamiliar cues throughout the physical landscape of the game. A game player with prior experience, however, would know the whereabouts of this character within the virtual realm, be able to identify this character, understand the reward structure inherent in eliminating this character, and kill him rather quickly and efficiently. Anecdotally, while coding much of the game content, coders in our study noticed that poor game players tended to log higher frequencies of all kinds of violent exchanges. Players that “got themselves killed a lot” were more inclined to behave aggressively toward most or all of the characters they encountered during the gameplay period, and were given more opportunities to attack the same characters as they found themselves having to repeat various levels of the game.

While this is an anecdotal observation drawn from one study, it does raise an interesting point: that we may have to reconsider whether or not the frequency of violence or of the occurrence of certain types of violence is of paramount importance, or whether familiarity with the game environment underscores a certain clinical approach to the use of violence that may attenuate the frequency with which these acts of violence take place.

Variability Based on Personality Differences

This study also examined the impact of personality characteristics on the frequency of violent occurrences, both across all four games in the study and within individual games. While the results generally suggest a link between these individual attributes and different types of game content, there is very little consistency in the extent to which what personality characteristics predicted what type of content from game to game. In fact, even the direction of the relationships between certain personality characteristics and content outcomes is inconsistent. This further complicates our understanding of the interactive nature of content, and the ways in which certain personality tendencies may interact with parameters of the game itself to predict certain types of content.

Let's return to the Grand Theft Auto series, this time looking at the analyses that were run on Grand Theft Auto 3. Intuitively, one might think that trait hostility would positively predict various aggressive acts. It's a fairly logical line of thinking: a more hostile person is given the opportunity to aggress in a simulated environment, with a reward structure associated with this simulated aggression, so they take full advantage of the opportunity and commit more acts of simulated violence than a less hostile person.

However, this is not the case. In this particular study, trait hostility was negatively associated to the frequency of unjustified violence committed across all four games, and violence involving natural means (such as punching and kicking) in GTA:3. With regard to the relationship between hostility and unjustified violence, it may be the case that those who are high in hostility are prone to enact aggressive responses specifically when provoked. This would then limit aggression responses to characters within the virtual realm that are recognizable as presenting a credible threat, as opposed to those of an unknown or good nature.

As a function of the storyline and interactive realm of GTA:3, game players are allowed to roam around the physical environment freely, interacting with other characters as they please. At times these can lead to positive outcomes (such as acquiring money or information), or negative ones (such as getting arrested or killed). As a result of the freedom to make choices concerning how and when to approach other characters, game players must go out of their way to utilize physical aggression involving natural means. If one chooses to aggress, there are faster, more efficient means of committing violence, such as shooting another character or running him/her over with a vehicle. Those who are predisposed toward hostility may prefer to use aggression strategies that do not involve direct contact with other characters, but instead offer a quick and easy means of eliminating other characters. Thus, the specific parameters of gameplay in GTA:3 may lead to an association between a personality attribute and a particular violent content outcome.

Numerous other examples of gameplay parameters leading to these relationships between user and content can be seen across the study. Physical aggressiveness predicts justified violence in Rainbow 6, but not in the other three games in the analysis. Empathy negatively predicts justified violence in Rainbow 6, even though it positively predicts gun violence across all four games. While only a single study using a small number of games and players, our study (Lachlan & Maloney, 2008) provides initial evidence of a problem in the content-analytic research later articulated by Schmierbach (2009) and others: that the interaction between game player attributes and highly specific aspects of the game itself is likely to produce tremendous variation in content, and that this variation will often be difficult to predict.

Conclusion

While not addressing other recent criticisms of the videogame content analysis literature, our study does shed light on the largely overlooked interface between game player and game parameters. When thinking about this particular study, combined with what we already know about the relationship between gameplay and aggression, we are drawn to three conclusions. First, we should expect a great deal of variability in game content from user to user. This fluctuation within game content across different players, regardless of the more specific factors that predict these fluctuations, suggests that we may have to revisit our conceptualizations of game content and the conventions with which we have historically analyzed game data.

Second, presence and past experience with a given game may sometimes play a role in the content that is produced. Making this picture a little murkier is the notion that telepresence may be negatively associated with violent content. This suggests a need for research addressing habituation to videogames, task-oriented virtual aggression, and perhaps even our most basic concerns when it comes to the link between violent game content and aggressive behavior. While behavioral research on television and film has historically been grounded in concern over the frequency of observed violent interactions, the real concerns associated with videogame violence might be quite different. Wildly excessive repetition of violence may simply take place as a function of unfamiliarity with the game system or an inability to experience presence in the interactive environment. Lower frequency of violent interactions, while appearing benign, may actually be the product of a systematic, clinical understanding of the use of violence in instrumentally accomplishing tasks.

Finally, the potential relationships between game player personality characteristics and videogame content require further inquiry. These relationships appear largely inconsistent across different games, and may force us to reconsider our units of analysis and the degree of generalization we seek to accomplish in studies evaluating these relationships. For example, it may be difficult (if not impossible) to make a statement regarding what impact psychoticism has on the frequency and nature of violent content across all videogames; it may be completely plausible, however, to evaluate this relationship within one game or a handful of games from a particular genre or series. This limitation in the extent to which we choose to generalize stems from the argument that the relationships between player attributes and content are a product of specific gameplay parameters of each game.

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